Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

Quite the opposite: in fact, the high and disproportionate costs in the present system hinder access to justice and can lead to a chilling effect on journalism and academic and scientific debate. In the Naomi Campbell case, the European Court of Human Rights found the existing CFA arrangements with recoverability in that case to be contrary to article 10 of the convention.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

May I update the House on the progress the Government have made toward implementing their proposals for payment by results, which I was defending a few moments ago? We have recently identified two probation trusts, one in Wales and the Staffordshire and West Midlands probation trust, to develop the community payment by results approach to probation services. We already have two well-established pilots in privately managed prisons and we hope to develop more; further pilots are being developed in public sector prisons. We are seeking proposals from the market for additional innovative contracts. We have selected a national framework of providers to support this work, which will assist us in meeting our commitment to roll out the principles of payment by results throughout the criminal justice system.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I hope the Secretary of State agrees with me that it is disgraceful that criminals who have created victims of crime are compensated under the criminal injuries compensation scheme. How much have criminals received over the past 10 years?

[Mr Clarke]

It is £75 million in the past 10 years, I think, and about 20,000 offenders have been compensated—I am remembering the brief for my statement yesterday. It is plainly insupportable that one week someone can commit a crime at his victims’ expense, and within a very short time claim that the taxpayer should compensate him because someone has committed a crime against him. We are bringing that to an end.